The new book Open Innovation Works aims to demystify the world of open innovation — partnering with outside entities like universities, government agencies, peer firms, and startups. In this excerpt, co-authors Diana Joseph, Dan Toma, and Esther Gons discuss two kinds of antibodies that often emerge to attack open innovation initiatives.
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Have you heard of this term — “corporate antibodies”? It’s a favorite among innovation consultants — and it’s an apt metaphor: Like a human body, your firm feels healthiest when things are stable. Like a human body, your firm has something like an immune system to protect it from disruption. Usually, when we hear people talk about “antibodies,” the speakers are change-makers expressing frustration with the system for rejecting their change.
We like to point out that stability is a good thing! The corporate immune system helps ensure everyone’s regular paycheck, including the paychecks for the innovation team. Since some changes are important, you’ll need to find a way through them. So let’s talk about how to recognize “antibodies,” how to address them, and when necessary, how to work around them.
We consistently see two types of antibodies: Financial antibodies and social antibodies.
Financial Antibodies
Money is an important mode of expression for your firm’s immune system. Your firm’s standard processes include scrutiny as money comes in through your project funding and as any financial results appear on the other side.
• Fund Open Innovation as a Standard Business Practice Rather than a Fixed Asset
Typically, open innovation efforts are funded as capital expenses, as if they were buildings or large machines that arrive on the books mainly as a one-time, up-front expense. If your firm funds open innovation as if it’s a factory, you’ll have to measure its success as if it’s a factory, delivering known products to a known audience at a known time. It’s easy to say no to building another factory.
Ideally, you want your open innovation effort to be funded as an operational, ongoing expense — the practice of open innovation should continue forward at all times, even as you update and switch between engines based on results and strategy. Ending your open innovation effort should feel like ending your marketing efforts: Unthinkable! You’ll have to show metrics, like marketing does. And your decisions won’t always be perfectly tied to income, like marketing’s efforts (what is the value of a billboard, for example?)
If you can, as soon as you can, make the case that open innovation should be a normal part of doing business.
• Call on Other Departments to Measure Their Invisible Externalities
If your work is perceived as competing with core business product lines for resources, you’re up against a serious challenge. In many organizations, the core business gets its new products “for free” from the efforts of the research and development (R&D) department. There is no particular internal accounting that shows that the organization paid via R&D effort for its products. The product organization gets to claim revenue without having to offset it with this critical and very costly expense.
Set the cost of open innovation investigation in context: Side by side with the cost of R&D and internal innovation.
In the case of the open innovation team, whose discoveries come from external sources, your expenses will be fully visible. Level the playing field when you share metrics. Set the cost of open innovation investigation in context: Side by side with the cost of R&D and internal innovation.
Social Antibodies
The human beings in your firm are incentivized to protect the familiar. Consider adjusting your incentive systems to encourage an appetite for change, especially for frontline leaders. And note that some folks may just not want change to happen — give them room.
• Support Managers
…Just about every open innovation engine requires input from frontline staff — engineers, scientists, designers, business model specialists, etc. The more exciting your work, the more these frontline staff are likely to want to participate. Their efforts represent a cost that is paid by one class of employee: Frontline managers. Chances are these managers get no help when their staff are pulled into your efforts — no help, no recognition, no compensation, they’re simply expected to make do with less than the already scant budget they start with. Think about what you can do to make them feel like it matters. Think about how you can recognize them, bonus them, and back up their resources. In essence, use your actions and words to convert them to allies and let them make change on your behalf.
• Give a Wide Berth to People Who Don’t Want What You’re Bringing
People whose work might be disrupted by your efforts may end up being your greatest allies (if they know they need to peer into the future), or your worst enemies (if they are attached to the status quo). The writer Greg Satell recommends leaving the likely saboteurs out of any discussions until the deed is just about done.
Excerpted from the 2026 book Open Innovation Works, by Diana Joseph, Dan Toma, and Esther Gons. (Featured image by Viktor Forgacs – click ↓↓ on Unsplash.)
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